


Arcana Fics, Ficlets, and Imagines

by go_we_li_s_gi



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Femslash, Ficlets, Fluff, Multi, Slow burn ish?, Steamy, the arcana game
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-07-04 10:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15839862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/go_we_li_s_gi/pseuds/go_we_li_s_gi
Summary: A collection of fanfictions, small fanfictions, and Imagines, the last of which I don't know how to write (yet.) Some Stories will be featuring my fan apprentice.





	1. " Dear Heart "

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Portia daydreams on duty and lives to never regret it.
> 
> WORD COUNT: 3,269  
> CONTENT WARNING: KINDA STEAMY, SELF DOUBT, MENTION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Summer nights in Vesuvia weren’t like the ones in Nevivon, which were humid and sticky and had the night air peppered with mosquitoes.

Often on nights like this, Portia would be in her cottage with her cat, cooking herself a Nevivian family meal. However, work required her to stay inside the palace for just a little bit longer, folding the delicately sewn and woven clothes she knew how to take care of merely by practice.

And so she stood in the countess’ chambers, folding colorful silk gown upon colorful silk gown, as she had grown so used to doing.

Often, she would feel just a bit alone and somewhat inferior, folding gowns she could never afford in a large room covered in beautiful and no doubt expensive decorations and baubles.

It was times like these when she wished her brother next to her, safe and alive, as it was when they were children. Although, knowing how her brother could never stand still, he would never finish the task at hand with her in time.

Portia, as she carded through cloth after cloth, set her gaze into the basket she fished the clothes out of, and spied a white dress with golden embroidery, freshly cleaned, pressed, and folded.

Picking it up gingerly, she held it by the shoulders and let it unfurl to its full length. Nay, not even a dress, it was a suit. Well, not a suit like any she had seen. Rather than having the jacket and pants separate from each other, it seemed to be all one piece, a button-up shirt at the top half with golden buttons and cufflinks connected to the bottom with a gold string tied in the middle to adjust at the waist. Across the snow-white fabric, there were golden patterns of apples and olive branches and plants she could not even recognize. Luxurious yet light it was, practical, though maybe not for her line of work.

She looked in the mirror across the room implanted on the wardrobe, oval and large so that she could see her body head to toe. She always had the impression her body was a bit too plump to wear anything fashionable. She had never worn fancy dresses to fancy occasions, never let more skin than she deemed necessary show, for fear of ridicule and embarrassment. While Portia was a woman of practicality - always loving to get her hands dirty from working in a garden, or doing laundry, or scrubbing floors - she enjoyed fancy dress, or at least looking at it.

Whenever Countess Nadia would have more colorful guests over - the dukes of Milova with their berry-colored robes with silver embellishments swirling across the cloth like ivy, the Nobles of Karnassos who would come for political briefings donning clothes of velvet in verdant and peridot hues with headpieces that had similarly pigmented veils and trains that dragged across the floors - she always would inwardly awe at the intricate stylings and embroidery on their clothing, stunned by how beautiful clothes could be.

She pondered upon these nobles, with their hair flowing and skin flawless and glowing like a painting, with their bodies slim yet curved just the right spots. She stared at her reflection in the mirror.

Her thighs, her belly, her arms, plump that they were noticeable and bulging, her skin covered in freckles that she despised when she was small, her mess of red curls that turned into clouds when she brushed them and curled tighter in humidity.

Tentatively, she draped the suit over her front. It would not fit her if she was wearing it. The pants were far too long and dragged on the polished marble floor. But she entertained the possibility that she was in it, a stunning vision that women would fawn over. She kept the shoulders in place at hers before hugging it across the waist and practicing a formal bow, adding a flourish of the wrist that was most likely poorly executed.

Silly, but it made her smile at her reflection. She stepped forward, then back, then forward again, gripping the dress against her body so that it wouldn’t slide off her body, as if she was dancing. She added a spin and a click of the heel against the floor, and beamed at her reflection, content with this more aristocratic, suave imaginary version of herself she would present at parties if she had the chance.

The click and creak of the door opening startled her from her daydream.

There, standing in the tall doorway, was the Countess, eyes tired from the boring diplomatic affairs she had to sit through, hair a bit frizzy yet still silky-straight.

“Milady!!” Portia yelped, stumbling backwards, suit still draped over her. Catching herself, and bundling the suit up in her arms, she hastily hung it up in the large dresser, fumbling on tiptoes to reach the shelf where it was meant to be put. Briskly, she spun around and bowed her head until it almost reached her knees, successfully hiding the shameful blush on her face.

“I, uh… I apologize, Milady!” How silly. How many handmaidens had Nadia come across acting so unprofessional with such a simple task as hanging clothes in a dresser?

Would she be reprimanded? She dreaded the thought of the Countess’ stern face scolding her for being so silly. Her daydreaming almost never got the best of her when she was working!

But as she raised herself back up, she was surprised to see the Countess’ warm smiling face as she closed the door behind her, taking the hairpieces off and setting them on the vanity close to the door.

The Countess, graceful she was, crossed the room to the inside of her translucent veil that ringed around her bed. Once inside and nothing but a silhouette, she stripped of her clothes, and Portia promptly looked away.

The Countess was an odd woman. Well, not especially odd, but odd for a noblewoman for the simple fact that she always undressed and dressed herself into her nightclothes rather than having the Handmaiden (Portia) do that for her. It was considered improper by Vesuvian sovereignty, but Nadia was not Vesuvian, so Portia, unbothered by this habit of hers, spoke not of it.

The Countess was done, it seemed, when she glanced back. Her gown had been replaced by the silk robe she wore to bed, and she was kicking off her slippers when she addressed her Handmaiden.

“Portia.” the Countess spoke. Portia flinched. Keeping her eyes on her Countess, Nadia’s gaze became oddly friendly, a strange familiar air wishing to form between them.

“Sit on my bed, please.” The Countess spoke again. Portia stood flabbergasted at the Countess’ request.

“Th… Your bed’s not presentable, milady, there’s so many clothes still on it…” Portia explained meekly, but Countess Nadia simply drew back the translucent curtain veiling her bed with gaze tender and smile peeping through, voice as slow and rich and sweet as honey.

“Nonsense. I don’t think a couple articles of clothing will get in the way.” There was something oddly sensual about her tone of voice, yet the way she brushed the space away from her on her queen-sized bed made Portia feel safe and comfortable in a way that male nobles never made her feel during situations like this, which were almost always unwanted advances from the noblemen onto her.

Portia hesitantly parted the veil and sat in the space the Countess had reserved for her, and when she did, she balled her pale fists in her lap. The Countess’ discarded gown and a black fur coat, the last of Portia’s laundry to hang, lay between them.

“I apologize for my daydreaming, Na–” Portia remembered herself. “…Milady.”

The Countess scoffed, tossing a lock of her sleek violet hair over her shoulder.

“Don’t apologize, dear Handmaiden. In fact,” she leaned over, “If it wouldn’t trouble you, I’d like to hear what you were daydreaming about.”

Portia’s heart fluttered against her chest and a rush of heat went to her cheeks from shame, sighing.

“O-Oftentimes…” she gulped. “Oftentimes, I think about, uh… About dressing up for a big party, like the masquerade or something… And, you know, I never got to dress up for anything in my life, so I saw a… a suit I really liked, and, well… I thought there wasn’t any harm to it.”

Nadia chuckled cordially, the air lightening for Portia.

“I cannot say I relate, having maids style my hair and pick out my clothing for me all of my life. But I fail to see how you find such a fantasy harmful.” she cocked her head to the side.

At this Portia smiled wryly, staring down into her lap at her balled fists, knuckles turning white.

“You don’t wanna attract them too much.” she said. Admittedly, she said this out of context.

The Countess furrowed a brow and sat up straight, long, graceful fingers still ghosting against the bed.

“I’m sorry?” the Countess asked, unsure where this statement was directed.

“My mother used to say that…” Portia hesitated, but when she saw the Countess’ blank expression she realized an explanation was necessary. “She used to say that when I would dress up for parties. ‘You’ll see them coming around the corner,’ she’d say. ‘All you want to do is impress the men that would be there.’ she’d say.”

At this the Countess laughed, rather loudly compared to Portia’s meek little voice. She gasped for breath to speak when she was done guffawing.

“Portia, dear heart, look at me.” Portia hesitantly glanced up at the Countess. Never before had she been called “dear heart” by someone with such a higher status than she.

The Countess’ lips were curled up in a knowing smile.

“Portia,” she repeated, “If every woman dressed for a man’s pleasure, we would not see any beautiful outfits ever.” Portia furrowed her brow, smiled back, nervously. The Countess continued.

“For me, at least, fashion is never about men. It’s for myself.” she blinked owlishly up at Nadia, who stared headlong into Portia’s eyes, a piercing wine red that she’d grown so familiar with.

“There’s something so alluring to me of wearing beautiful clothing, how it looks on me. How it looks on other women, for that matter.” she purred. Her hand stretched itself to Portia, her thin and elegant fingers traced circles in the fur coat laying spread next to Portia.

“The softness of fox fur…” Nadia’s fingers snaked across the fur, advancing towards Portia’s hand.

“…The sparkle of a gown bedazzled in jewels…” she drawled on, and soon her long fingers began to ghost up Portia’s bare forearm.

“…The luxuriousness of silk underwear.” the Countess uttered under her breath, a whisper that nobody but she could hear. Portia dared not breathe. With heart fluttering and skin heating up, she tried with all her might not to show that her breathing had become shallow.

The tender cupping of Portia’s cheek distracted her and she let out a slow, trembling breath, her eyes fixed on her Countess’ beautiful face. Those red eyes had pupils dilated and her cheeks flushed ever so slightly.

“The fact that these things make me feel good is entirely the reason I wear them. Any man that finds them attractive on me, well… they can stare all they like.” the Countess said with a smirk toying at the corners of her lips. Still all that Portia could focus on was the Countess’ hand on her cheek.

“Would you like me to play dress-up with you? I’d enjoy having you try on outfits for me,” the Countess murmured, huffing a soft breath as she drew herself closer to Portia, towering over her even while they sat side by side.

There was nothing explicit about what the Countess was saying, but… somehow, Portia had a sense that her Countess did not have the most innocent of intentions. And she was happy with this turn of events, though still nervous towards the thought of being with someone of such a higher status than her. The Countess cupped Portia’s face in one hand and ran a hand up her large, pale thigh in a tantalizingly slow manner.

Unsure of what to do with her hands, or with her body in general, she leaned forward and placed her hands on the Countess’ knees.

“How I’ve ached for you,” the Countess whispered, backing away from Portia’s face to further antagonize her. “I’ve wanted to touch you so badly, for so long. To hold hands would have barely been enough to sate me, but I would have taken it. You know I would have.” she continued reverently.

Her lips parted to speak, no denial of the Countess’ advances intended behind her words at all.

“Milady…” she swooned, and the Countess flinched at that, smirking down at Portia wryly.

“If this is going where I think it is, you will not be calling me ‘Milady’ for long, Portia. Not if I have anything to say about it.” Her breath caught in her chest yet again, her body stiffening from shock. Still she silently pleaded for the Countess to continue.

“What shall I call you?” she asked, hands traveling up past the knees of the Countess and into her lap.

“Will you call me by my name, Portia?” there was a pause, a tender gaze between the two replacing any unnecessary words. “Say my name, dear heart.”

Dear heart. There it was again. Portia wanted to be called that by Nadia’s tongue and Nadia’s tongue alone. But still, it was alien to her to call a superior, an employer by their first name.

“Na-” she gasped softly when Countess Nadia’s hand ran slowly up her torso, fingertips brushing over her stomach rolls she had looked at in the mirror only a few minutes ago and despised.

“Nadia.” she breathed out, barely a whisper. The name on her tongue felt foreign, so much different than “milady.” It felt more intimate, intimate as they were. With Nadia’s thumb gently pushing Portia’s lower lip down, her other hand on her waist, Portia’s hands in little fists balling up the delicate fabric of Nadia’s robe.

Tantalizingly slowly, their noses inched closer and closer to each other, their hot breath oddly welcome despite the temperature of that evening.

“Good,” Nadia crooned, shifting her thumb away from Portia’s lips to her cheek instead, dark-skinned thumb stroking over pale skin amorously. “Say it again. Please.”

“Nadia.” it was like an oath, a breathy dedication to the woman with her hands on her in a sensual manner that was still not explicitly so. Another hot breath that passed between two lungs, and now their lips were merely hairs apart…

An abrupt yet familiar click and creak of the door startled the both of them away from each other.

Portia stumbled clumsily out of the veil that circled around Nadia’s bed and stood to attention once seeing the Consul Valerius with his typical glass of wine in hand standing in the doorway, with a servant holding the door open for him.

He sneered at her, an expression of his that she was used to but not fond of. Nadia, ever graceful, opened the curtains gently and tutted at the Consul’s domineering presence, reaching to flustered Portia to interlock pinky fingers.

“Consul, would you mind terribly if you left me alone for one moment?” Nadia scowled. The Consul, ever a friendly fellow, gibed back promptly, leaving no discussion.

“I actually would mind terribly, Countess. There are certain infrastructural issues to be discussed that you failed to bring up in today’s briefing.” he nodded in Portia’s direction with a seemingly permanent sneer. “I’m fairly certain that a scandalous rendezvous with your handmaiden can wait.”

Nadia scoffed at this and sneered back at him. It was almost as if they had conversations like this before.

“Since when have you cared about the infrastructure of this city, Consul?” The Consul opened his mouth as if to speak, then was promptly cut short with Nadia’s dismissive wave of the hand. “I will be dressed soon. Leave me.”

The Consul regarded this with a nod and a sip of his wine glass. He was so consistently on the wine that often Portia wondered what he was like when sober. Perhaps he induced even more misery, but the optimistic side of her told her to hope he was just sad behind all those wine-filled hazes.

Nadia shucked her robe off and Portia promptly looked away again, heading for the door.

“Where are you going?” called Nadia from across the room. Portia’s hand was on the handle of the door, but she hesitated hearing Nadia’s melancholy voice. Knowing she had to leave but wanting more than anything not to was eating her inside.

“I think I should go to my cottage, Mi–” Portia remembered herself. “Nadia.”

A sigh could be heard from the other side of the room.

“Of course,” Nadia replied glumly, and soon Portia felt a hand slip around her waist.

Looking up, Portia could now see that the Countess had donned her gown on once more, with her hair tied messily, but acceptably so.

“Sleep well, dear heart. I hope I was not too intruding.” Nadia seemed so morose that Portia could not help but hold her hand and inform her of the truth.

“No, M–Nadia, of course not. I… I’m glad you made advances.” Portia smiled up at her. They interlocked smiling, wordless gazes when Portia suddenly yawned. Nadia chuckled, soft as the brush of a feather was the sound.

“I think you should be sleeping soon.” Nadia absentmindedly tucked a hair behind Portia’s ear. She relished every touch the Countess had to give so much that even the slightest brush of the hand gave a sense of joy unparallelled to childhood infatuation, which she thought it was at first.

Nadia, O clement Goddess, with crooning voice and sweet touch, slowly slipped away from Portia’s hands, bidding her an uncharacteristically casual, “See you.”

Portia’s walk from the Palace to her cottage passed by quickly, a blur of foliage and lightning bugs before being greeted by the smell and sight of her home. Briskly she changed out of her clothes and slipped on a mere robe to clamber into bed and sleep in, with the soft and warm form of her old cat climbing under the covers so that she could embrace her, a habit Pepi had started as a kitten and that Portia was not interested in putting an end to.

Portia drifted into slumber soon, dreams rife with visions of honey dripping from spoons and of a figure embracing her from behind, dancing slowly.

The morning afterwards, Portia awoke slowly but surely, the early gray dawn air ubiquitous with the sound of morning doves. Portia stretched her arms, the coo of the doves a pleasant alternative to the rooster she had grown so used to in Nevivon.

Across the room from her, a dress –nay, a suit– hung from a coat hanger.

Rather than having the jacket and pants separate from each other, it seemed to be all one piece, a button-up shirt at the top half with golden buttons and cufflinks connected to the bottom with a gold string tied in the middle to adjust at the waist. Across the snow-white fabric, there were golden patterns of apples and olive branches and plants she could not even recognize. Luxurious yet light it was, practical, though maybe not for her line of work.

Portia smiled up at Nadia’s gift and, as an impulse, hugged her pillow tightly.


	2. Imagine I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this before Temperence came out, just a note to take with you.
> 
> WORD COUNT: 539  
> CONTENT WARNING: NONE

Imagine Lucio showing up at the Masquerade in the main ballroom, in goat form, ready to put on a show and get his brand-new body. He grabs Nadia by the arm and begins to yank her in his direction, all the while the yells and gasps of Vesuvian nobility pepper the air around them. Suddenly, a voice pipes up from the crowd.

It’s Portia, bellowing “Get away from her!” at the top her lungs. She’s pushed her way to the front, her mask discarded on the floor in a heap of ribbons and flowers. 

Lucio, being his usual slimy self, continues to tug Nadia towards him with a grin so wide it’s almost a grimace, and begins to drawl his voice out in an attempt to be threatening.

_“Petty little Handmaiden–”_

He doesn’t get to finish this sentence, as Portia picks up a vase and hurls it straight at his head before he has the chance to continue. He recoils and bleats in pain.  _Oohs_  and  _Aahs_  are heard among masked spectators as he loosens Nadia from his grip to grasp at his bleeding forehead. He’s on his back, but promptly starts to lift himself off the ground. Another interrupted attempt at being threatening, as Portia rushes him with a wooden chair and a war cry.

She swings the chair at him, and it splinters apart from the force of the blow. He rolls over on his back, and begins to scuttle away. Portia, in a blind fury, grabs another wooden chair and whisks the metal punch bowl off of the buffet table. She chases him, and she’s on Lucio’s heels when she hurls the punch bowl at his head. When the metal bowl nails him straight in the head and sends him to his knees, the juice spills out of the bowl and stains his snow-white fur a bright pomegranate red, almost blending with the blood dripping from the open cut on his head.

He turns and begins to drag himself away towards the stairs on his back, but she stomps on his stomach and knocks the wind out of him before he can scuttle away.

“Oh no, you don’t!” she raises the chair over her head, snarling down at him with her foot still planted firmly on his stomach.

“It’s not enough you wanna frame my brother for murder and make my girl’s life a living hell, but you have the nerve to call me a  _‘petty little handmaiden’?!_  Get out!! Get out and never come back!!” she roars, and the crowd around her _oohs_ and  _aahs_  some more, awestruck. Some even take off their masks to see better.

One would expect to see the beast at the redheaded girl’s feet to look up at her with fear or disbelief at the fact that she had the nerve to stand up to him at all. Instead, he’s staring up at her with a look so mischievous you can practically see the gears turning in his mind. It looks extremely odd coupled with the bleeding wound and defeated position he is in.

 _“The Star.”_  he croaks, a wicked smirk toying at the corners of his lips. A look of incredulity replaces Portia’s angered expression when she speaks.

“What?”


	3. Lonely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a lonely Nadia wakes to a cute face.  
> Inspired by this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ActBSJwEKs
> 
> WORD COUNT: 956  
> CONTENT WARNING: BLOOD, THEMES OF DOMESTIC TENSION

“It’s lonely at the top” was a cliché expression the Countess was all-too familiar with. She used to detest the phrase, often used by her eldest sister. Being the youngest of seven, she loathed rather openly the fact that her elder sisters, with suitors and freedom and years of experience to call their own, would use such a phrase, meanwhile she would not be taken seriously and condescendingly called smart for expressing an opinion.

As she grew older, however, the reality of this phrase was a bit too jarring to the young Satrinava. As beneficial as her marriage was to forming an alliance between Prakra and Vesuvia, she had agreed to the engagement drunk and had found that while the Count Lucio was a formidable man admired by Vesuvia, that admiration was instilled through fear and money. Many were the days that Nadia had seen him return from a hunt with the head of some massive animal in his golden hand.

“I’ve happened upon a new trophy, Noddy!” He would laugh, his white hunting suit covered in blood from the head of the beast, matching the ichor that stained and dripped from the hound’s smiling maws.

In an admittedly sadistic way, the slow death of the Count was… refreshing. She had grown quite amused at the temper tantrums he threw that used to have so much more power behind them. When she would laugh at him, he would not react the way he did the night he was drunk, rather, he would continue to flail his bony fist in the air, eventually knocking something easily breakable to the floor with an indignant cry. During appointments with Dr. Devorak, oftentimes he would knock over the bottle of leeches, and the lanky doctor would try desperately to catch it as it toppled over and shattered on the floor.

“Congratulations. You broke it, you insufferable pest.” Nadia said one day, the Doctor looking up miserably as he scooped up as many leeches as he could in his gloved hands. His response was to scoff at her and ball a white-knuckled fist into his sheets with a statement of, “Nothing is right! My own wife even thinks less of me!”

How lonely she felt  in her loveless marriage before finding others who detested Lucio as much as she. How lonely she felt when she fell to floor the night of the masquerade, to remain in a cage of slumber for three years.

How strange it was, then, to have finally a good dream before she awoke. She dreamt she floated nude in a pool of swirling colors, her hair sopping and lustrous once again. The smell of lavender surrounded her senses almost overwhelmingly, intoxicatingly, lulling her to a sense of calm she had not felt when in her dreams she was chased and glowered at by a pale goat on its hind legs. Past this sense of calm, she felt the slow and comforting feeling of a hand holding hers, massaging gently.

 _How tender,_  she thought.  _How I’ve longed for this in a marriage. How I’ve ached for togetherness._  She inhaled sharply to hold back a sob at the thought of a marriage with love and passion instead of hate and resentment she had grown so familiar with.

The hand squeezed. Not harshly, and not in a vise, but tight enough to startle pleasantly. The startle was enough for her to finally stir.

As she blinked awake, the sensation of a hand holding hers was still present.

Her vision was still blurry, her eyelids droopy from oversleeping and half a wish to go back to the smell of lavender to ease the throbbing pain at her forehead and temples.

She heard a faint cry of “Milady!” accompanied by another squeeze and a clatter, an exclamation in a language she was vaguely familiar with.

She blinked rapidly, a blurry image beginning to form above her.

When her vision returned, she looked up.

Sitting next to her bed was a rather small red-haired, freckled thing, her mess of orange curls tied up in a ponytail. Her eyes were as vivid blue as a calm sea and when this beauty looked down at Nadia, she saw a blush turn her fair skin flushed at the cheeks and chest.

The pale, freckled hand in hers began to slip away, she caught it and interlocked with the fingers. The woman’s blush intensified, eyes widening as Nadia sweetly ran her thumb over the woman’s knuckles. Nadia gazed up at her, finally able to feel the touch of another had made her grow needy, lest she realize it so soon she became self-aware.

The woman’s face, flushed and perfect, sent shivers up Nadia’s spine.

Her nose was upturned, her lips not big yet full, defined and pink from biting dry skin off. Lord, how she wanted to gift her a luxurious salve for her chapped lips, not that the dryness made her any less beautiful. Her skin, pale as a sheet of paper, was heated from blushing, covered in a sea of freckles vast as the ocean itself.

“Milady! You’re awake!” the woman exulted, tears brimming in those shining crystalline eyes. The countess, ever so unused to using her voice, cleared her throat three times.

“Hello there,” she croaked, slumber rendering a gravelly tone to her voice she was not fond of.

“…Milady!” the woman gasped, as if she was surprised Nadia even said anything, then smiled and laughed breathily, possibly a nervous habit that Nadia wanted to see more often.

“Hullo!” she chirped, and Nadia could not help but laugh and squeeze the woman’s hand tighter. How she missed human touch, and how she loved this woman for providing it to her as best she could.


	4. Imagine II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was just a thought that popped into my mind, apologies in advance for it being very......... well, first draft-y. i'm a bit inspired by the new "Tales" update!
> 
> WORD COUNT: 665  
> CONTENT WARNING: NONE

Imagine a young Julian going on his first adventure in the woods in Nevivon. 

He's gangly, pale, and tall for a boy of thirteen, thus must look extremely out of place in the woodland scenery. Within the woods, he finds a fairy ring of mushrooms, which he steps in, because of _course_ he would. He would never outgrow his infatuation with danger. He would find a frog, a vivid green making it stand out from the duller green of the grass, and ignoring the warnings that it would give him warts from his friends and parents, he picks it up only to drop it, quite outwardly disgusted at the viscosity of the creature. He wipes his hand on the dew-spotted grass as it leaps away in fear.

He has packed a lunch, since he planned on staying in the woods for a lot longer than he would eventually end up staying. A simple meal of an apple, and meat and cheese wedged between sliced bread. As he's taking tentative bites out of the sandwich, admiring the way the thick towering branches of evergreen trees contrast the grey sky above whose leaves create a shushing sound with the wind, he hears a very distinct, loud, _caw!_

He looks at the source, and he's taken aback, at first -- he's observed ravens from a distance, used taxidermied figures of them as references for his studies on ornithological anatomy, but never before has one of the birds approached him in a cavalier manner. In fact, the "feathered friend", as his sister fondly referred to any avifauna, was merely a foot away from him. It jumps and lands on its leathery talons, its chest feathers ruffling up before it leans forward and caws indignantly yet again.

Julian, puzzled at first as to why the raven has taken such a confrontational tone with him, shifts slightly, trying to keep his sandwich out of reach. Apparently not a wise choice, as the raven surges forward suddenly with nettled cries of _"Caw! Caw!"_ and begins to swipe its talons at him in an attempt to claw the lunch into its grasp. Julian, obviously wise beyond his thirteen years, swings his bony arm at the bird, hitting it square in the tender part of its abdomen and knocking it onto the ground. While this would offer him a moment to get a head start, it is merely a moment. 

As he frantically stuffs the sandwich in his pack, he already hears the raucous cawing of the enraged raven getting closer and closer, and soon yet again he feels its talons swiping at his head.

He continues onward, frenzied and partially blinded by his shielding arms, heading in a vague direction that he does not know is going to lead to his house or not. Once along the way, past the raven's screeches, a painful cry is heard from Julian as the raven gets one good swipe in. It's a stinging pain right above his eyebrow that he wishes does not leave a scar. As he emerges from the treeline and sees the split level roofs of his home in the near distance, he begins fighting back with his pack as a last resort. He's flailing the pack wildly at the raven, eventually managing to convince it to flap away with a strike straight to the head, but possibly the repeating cries of "Leave me alone! Stop it!" had added to his very convincing argument as well.

As he approaches the house out of breath in a jog, his sister would meet him with a panic-stricken cry of "Julian!" and a frantic sprint across the front yard to hug him mercilessly tight.

He blinks owlishly down at her, and sees that tears are brimming in her worry-stricken eyes.

"You're bleeding!" she exclaims, reaching up to his forehead. She takes it away and he sees a thin blot of crimson along her fingers. Julian, befuddled in his adrenal hangover, can only respond with a breathy "Huh?"


	5. The Tower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What the Tower could have been, or rather, what I wanted it to be. I found the most recent chapter incredibly anticlimactic. I don't write much angst-ridden writing, and I'm not quite an expert on writing murder, so bear with me. I'm going to start adding word counts and Content Warnings to each of my fics, imagines, ficlets, etc., etc. ... Mention of my apprentice.
> 
> WORD COUNT: 3,095  
> CONTENT WARNING: BLOOD

“My dear Vesuvians!” the Count cried merrily with a flourish of the wrist. He descended the steps and raised his head pompously, the hounds sniffing at him with their long snouts and circling him with wagging tails.

Icy blue eyes ringed by red scoured the crowd and locked eyes with those of olive green, in a terror-stricken face slashed with pale scars across the cheek and above the eyebrow, covered by tangled strands of black hair.

The hermit dropped to his knees, the crowd parting as the Count strutted towards him. The magician, ever louder than the Count deemed necessary, threw his golden fox mask aside. It landed with a clutter to the floor.

“I swear to God, if you lay one finger on him, I will kill you once and for all, Lucio!” The Magician snarled at the Count with a newfound disgust, not even caring of the gasps of powder-faced sovereignty and commoners alike.

Lucio tutted, snapping the fingers of his flesh hand. A guard with a rabbit mask, compliant to his lord, grabbed the magician’s hands and forced them behind his back. How amusing to Lucio, how he struggled against the grip of the guard as he was pulled aside, out of Lucio’s way.

“Asra, you don’t want to confess to the whole town, do you? Don’t you want at least a little sympathy, you traitorous hack?” Lucio spat at Asra’s feet, expecting Asra to try and dodge it like you would a bullet. Instead it pooled at the bottom of his snow-white skirt, and he simply lowered his head, jerking against the grip of the Rabbit Guard futilely.

“Look at him!” Lucio laughed and pointed at the hermit with a clawed hand, mock in his voice. The hermit flinched at his raucous mocking voice, huge hands grasping the floor and trembling.

“He towers over everyone in this room, yet he drops to his knees at the mere sight of me!” Lucio jeered, a cackle commencing after he had finished the sentence. Aristocrats with their extravagant dresses and suits with tails of feathers and gold-embroidered fans chuckled and laughed along, the suffering of the poor acceptable to be laughed at yet again.

“Don’t listen to him, Muriel!” Asra bellowed, unapologetically loud over the sound of wealth.

“Silence!” Lucio howled, raising a hand that threatened to strike. When bloodshot eyes matched with healthy ones, Asra spat at Lucio’s feet. In a fell swoop, the guard forced Asra to his knees with a demanding forearm.

“Bastard! Son of a bitch!” Asra cursed at him, but soon his cheek was too squished against the tile for him to form any words that weren’t muffled.

He looked over at his wife, bound yet again by a guard in the mask of, this time, a bird. Her dress’ cage did not help her in her struggle to free herself.

“Lucio!” She barked, jerking against the bird guard, another man of quite considerable strength.

“Oh, Nadia. Sweet, sweet, Countess of mine,” he crooned, and she cringed at him. “Where’s that quack of a doctor? I need to speak to him too. I think he colluded with this traitorous friend of yours in an attempt to kill me.” He gestured lazily to Asra’s bent form.

Nadia cleared her throat, twisting her arms around from the back.

“Go back to hell! Stay there!” she growled. And Lucio guffawed yet again, the nobles from before covering their confused faces with their fans and guffawing identically.

His golden hand reached down to Muriel’s head, to pet his hair. Muriel flinched at this, drawing away.

“ _Excuse_ me?” Lucio gripped the hair at the nape of Muriel’s neck with a commanding, disgusted gasp.

“Quite frankly, Muriel, you consented to all of this. You told me you would pay any price I set when I told you you had to pay a price for your friends’ safety.” He continued, loosening his clawed fingers from between the strands of hair at Muriel’s nape, then grabbed at it again, jerking his head up from its bowing position.

“Do you really have the right to flinch at me?” His voice was nasally. It had always been nasally, more like his father’s than his mother’s powerful booming voice, and thus never had been found intimidating at first listen. And now that a man much stronger than him, bigger than him, and overall more intimidating than him, was on his hands and knees in fear, it was exhilarating.Fulfilling, even, to say he had accomplished what his mother said he could never.

“Are you ready to _work_ for me again?” Lucio asked him, grinning a malicious, toothy grin down at Muriel’s terror-stricken eyes. His executioner stared up at him, the stubble of a sad man still there from when he fought.

“You better be,” Lucio snarled. “I think I have a few executions for you to make tonight.” he gestured lazily yet again to Asra’s bent form.

Muriel turned his gaze towards Asra’s form, bent under the forearm of an anonymous guard, and heaved a shaky sob.

And still, Asra, the bastard he was, still he dared to speak.

“Muriel, you only need to fight one person here! And after that never again!” he cried, and Muriel’s sobs only became louder, raspier as the breaths he took between them became more rapid and shallow.

“Muriel! You have to fight back! You can’t let him control you! You can’t let him win! You can do--” Asra’s shouts of distress were muffled yet again, this time by the gloved hand of the rabbit guard.

Lucio stroked the head of his executioner absentmindedly, and his sobs only turned to wheezing pants.

“Count Lucio.” the voice was sudden and formless, filled with a veiled disgust, a woman’s.

The Woman’s features were not yet established from her detached sonorous voice ringing from the crowd.

And soon, she took a form as she tread her way past the crowd with a presence formidable as Lucio himself, and Lucio could see that she was tall. Her flowing hair of white was tied loosely in a braid that hung down her front. A simple mask of turtleskin framed her eyes and covered only the upper bridge of her nose in a feeble attempt at anonymity. And when he noticed the deep olive skin that Prakrans seemed to share, he remembered that party so many years before when he proposed the youngest Satrinava and had to introduce himself to the eldest.

“Nafizah! How delightful! Have you come for the family reunion?” He practically sang, fingers still tracing cruel patterns into the kneeling, whimpering Muriel’s skin.

“I came for Nadia.” She said, looking past him and nodding to her sister, who still struggled against the viselike grip of the bird guard. “I’m taking you home, ’Dia.”

“Hey now,” Lucio raised a golden hand to Nafizah. “You think you can just snatch my wife from me? She has a right to her own freedom, doesn’t she?”

Nafizah’s eyes, a piercing gold undiscoverable in others, bore into him, a darkness behind them unpresent when he had first tried to converse with her vacant self. Her hands, which interlocked each other’s fingers before, were now balled in fists at her sides.

“You’re right. She does. And I shall give her more freedom that you ever did or will.” she said. “I regret many things in my life. But the thing I regret and will regret the most is pressuring my youngest sister into marriage with _scum_ like you in the name of an alliance.”

Scum.

That word, when snarled at him through an indignant hag’s teeth, was amusing. He loved being called scum by people who he knew had no power over him where he stood. Insults from women had always rendered him into a laughing fit at how ineffectual they were.

“You wound me, Nafizah. Truly.” He pouted, placing a palm on his slightly exposed chest. And she cocked her head up, stared down at him with a wry smirk curling her violet-painted lips.

“You think I am afraid of you? You, the cretin who thought ridding himself of the Fool would benefit his ritual to get a new body? Who thought myself, the World, would ever consent to such a useless ritual? Your condition, your city’s condition for years -- the blood-red irises, the piling bodies, the halved population -- this is all _your_ fault, isn’t it? What makes you think you deserve a new body? You think I’m sympathetic to the ass that accidentally sent half of his city to death by plague? You’re mistaken. You are not what these people see you as, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you maintain the illusion. And you know I am right.

“You are not a formidable Count, a ruthless hunter, an optimal leader, a good husband. You know you aren’t. You are nothing but a little boy too scared of his mother to face her.”

And a hush fell over the crowd. His eyes, widened in fury, bored into hers. He could force a laugh, but instead, all he could muster was a slow exhale. The truth laid bare and hung in the air, a ghastly, naked truth that he could not deny. The things she called him - scum, cretin, little boy - they were not to ruin his image to the people. They were to ruin him. They were direct sabotage onto _him_ , not his character, _him._ The bitch.

In a simple swiping motion, Lucio’s clawed index finger split open Nafizah’s throat.

The blood, bright red and permeating the room with the stench of copper, spurted from the slit and once Nafizah’s hands clasped at the wound, the ichor drooled from betwixt her fingers and dribbled down her chest, ran in rivulets down her arms, spattered against her veil.

Gasps could be heard, screams from several partygoers. Shrieks from the now six princesses as they were promptly held back by masked guards.

The green-haired one stood rigid, a silent cry abutting her gaping mouth. The orange-haired one reacted the same, it seemed as if she held her breath and tried her best to not fight against the guard holding her hands behind her back.

The bluette’s shrieks could be heard above all screams and gasps of the crowd. They weren’t much but a name.

“Nafizah! Nafizah! Nafizah!” she shrieked over and over, trying her best to kick and squirm out of the masked guard’s grasp, her skinny frame proving useless. The guard lifted her up, her short legs kicking the air, screaming like a fraught child.

And the one with hair red as wine tried for reasoning, explaining to their seemingly assigned masked guard ad nauseum: “I’m a doctor! I can save her! Let me go to her!” before Nafizah dropped to her knees, their reasoning sentence turning into a desperate cry immediately.

Nafizah, now on her knees, looked up at Lucio and gurgled blood out of her mouth. There was no fear in those eyes of gold, simply even more disgust. With a soft kick of his boot to her abdomen, she retched more ever-pouring blood out of her mouth and fell to the tiled floor with a soft thump. There was a sense that he was more scared of her dying than she was.

 _How dare she not show fear in the face of death?_ His kick seemed to say. _How dare she not cower away from me? How dare she?_

As the crimson ichor flowed into pools on the tile, it trickled towards Muriel, staining his clammy, shaking hands. He raised them, and the blood, slow as honey, dripped from his fingers onto his pants.

He screamed. A wheezing keen at first, an extended sob to follow, before a howl of terror ripped through his lungs and sent the room into even more panic. Beneath the rabbit guard, Asra struggled yet again, biting on the hand that muffled him.

“Muriel! I’m here! I’m here! You’re going to be okay! I’m here! Look at me!” he called to him. Muriel looked at him, the scream still echoing in his throat. The realization of what would happen to him was now apparent to Muriel, and yet he still could not find it within his humble bones to raise a fist, to give shout of indignation. Asra tried to say something before the gloved hand clapped down on mouth yet again. This time the fingers squeezed a bit and Asra let out a muffled yell of pain.

Muriel, unable to do anything but cogitate on his fate, crumpled in on himself, his head touching the floor in between his knees, black hair soaking into thick lifeblood, body trembling violently.

The gold-haired, gold-eyed one, which Lucio remembered as Nahara, spoke up from the crowd, over Muriel’s keening cry of desolation, which had died down and turned into hopeless sobs.

“I hope you know what this means, Count Lucio.” Nahara called, voice level. He couldn't care less, nudged the limp body of the eldest Satrinava with his boot to lie face-up, eyes in a blank stare at the ceiling. Her braid was stained with red, throat wound still gently pulsing with blood.

“No, Nahara. What’s it mean?” he mocked, and this was enough to prompt a yell, a holler at his audacity.

“You have waged war upon Prakra! You have killed our eldest princess and you have imprisoned the rest of us! If you want to shake your little, pale fist at us, it’s going to be the last time you have a human hand!” she roared. The human emotion devastation was something he grown accustomed to, delighted by, even. He saw it in the faces of the villagers whose villages he tore through with armies for overkill, he saw it in the faces of animals he hunted in his glory days. Through terror, he gained power, and through power, he gained obedience. Was that not always the spirit carried within his clan?

Turning his head to Nadia, he saw a still figure in the arms of the guard, her face downcast at she looked upon Nafizah’s sunken, vacant eyes.

“Noddy, what do you think of this war business?” he mocked, and he could see her downcast expression turn to umbrage. She hopped, stomping on the guard’s feet, and when he drew back with a grunt, she wrestled her arms out of his grasp. In a flurry of wrath, she rushed towards Lucio with arms outstretched, hands ready to strangle.

As she lunged for his neck, hands turned to rigid claws, they were promptly swatted away and pinned behind her back as the guard with the bird mask lifted her off of the ground. Nadia, with no other weapon to use against her husband but her words, resorted to screams.

 _“I’ll have you burned alive! Pulled apart!”_ she roared, dangling legs kicking the air. Pale onlookers that had stuck around for the show gasped. _“I’ll have you dropped from the highest turret of this palace! I’ll--”_ Lucio, tired of screaming women for the night, raised his golden hand at her, another threat to strike that seemed to be genuine, the hand seeming to bring itself towards her face briskly.

This would prove to be futile, as a large hand gripped the back of Lucio’s neck and sent him flying backwards, his cape whipping behind him as he was slammed to the floor face-first.

As he looked up, he was met with scared green eyes yet again, this time looking down at him.

“Kick his ass! Kick his ass, Muriel!” bellowed Asra from behind him, his mouth seeming to be free of the guard’s oppressive hand. Muriel, as large as he was, under Lucio’s ireful gaze, seemed to loosen his fists, a rattling breath let out of him.

“No! Don’t back off! Fight back! Look at him! Think of what he’s done to you, to Nadia, to me! Think of--”

“Yes! That’s right, you insolent beast! Think most of all of what I have done to Asra’s poor, precious Apprentice! Th--” Lucio’s thoughts could not even be finished when a punch landed onto his jaw. Knocked to the ground yet again, he felt a tug at his cape before he was thrown and slammed into the floor yet again, this time on his back. The impact had his lungs shut on themselves, choked gasps for air proving futile for his needy lungs.

With Muriel’s immense form looming over his body, Lucio knew that only a few words would be enough to convince Muriel to turn rogue against him. And thus, Lucio, with a guttural intake of air, propped himself up on his elbows, resting his weight on the metal one.

“You _owe_ me, remember, _Scourge?_ ” there was a pause, the room deathly quiet other than the whispers amongst onlookers on the sides of the ballroom.

Apparently he did not. Muriel seized Lucio’s golden arm, and with one forceful lunge of the arm, wrenched it to be bent backwards at the elbow, functionally rendered useless now. Lucio could not do much but let out an admonishing, offended shout, cut off by another punch to the jaw.

“I don’t owe you shit!” he roared. Muriel’s fists rained down on Lucio’s face, over and over in a hailstorm of newfounded fury where there once was terror. He stopped for one moment, dragging Lucio up by the collar to raise his limp form into a sitting pose.

The Count’s face was swollen and bloody, his Executioner’s eyes red and puffy from crying.

“I accepted your offer for Asra’s _life!_ I accepted your deal for the well-being of Lana! And you, you...” he paused, delivering yet another punch upside the head. “You killed her anyway! You forced Asra to give up half his heart for a bad copy of her! I don’t owe you anything!” He screamed, anger causing his voice having it break midway through.

Lucio, body limp from having the wind knocked out of him, is easily shaken around by Muriel like a rag doll.

He retched a weak cough of, “Fine... I give up.”

A wheezing, disbelieving laugh from his attacker.

 _“Give up?!_ No, you don’t give up,” the Scourge wrapped his fingers around the neck of the Count and squeezed. “You die.”

Above the shrieks of the crowd, the scuttle of onlookers searching to escape the castle grounds, Lucio could hear a ringing in his ears uninterrupted, a high monotonous keen that rang over the crowd. His own sputters and empty gasps for help were drowned out even to him.


	6. Eyedrops (Modern AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My apprentice is in here. Is that allowed? I don't care  
> WORD COUNT: 418  
> CONTENT WARNING(S): DRUG USE

“You’re so small,” he mumbles, resting his open palm upon hers. It’s nearly twice as big as hers. She huffs playfully, mock punching him in a large shoulder.

“No need to rub it in my face, you giant.”

“You’re like a...” he pauses, humming to himself while he interlaces their fingers. “You’re like a little pixie. Yeah. A pixie in a little garden.” he says dreamily.

Lana holds back laughter and looks over at Asra, who is holding in laughter as well, holding the eyedrops he uses that reduce redness. 

“I think you let him have too much.” She laughs through her words, and Asra snorts, covering his mouth. 

“If he’s this hilarious on one blunt, I think we should give him more,” he laughs out loud. 

“Shh!” Lana blurts, snickering and pressing a finger to her lips.

“I love you two.” he proclaims.

Asra “Awwww”s very loudly and walks over to Lana and Muriel, intent on taking them in a bear hug.

“You big ol’ lug!” Lana remarks before mussing up his hair and initiating the hug rather than Asra. 

“I’m serious,” Muriel says after a pause. “I really, really love both of you. Like,  _ love  _ love you. You’re everything to me. I would die for you. I’ve always felt like saying that before, but I’m so scared of you guys not feeling the same way.”

There’s a pause before Lana breaks it with hysterical laughter. Asra chuckles a bit and goes to Muriel to touch him on the shoulder.

“Muriel, we’ve all been dating each other for... how long? Six months?” Lana is practically bursting at the seams, a raucous wheezing laugh that fills the room and most likely alerts the neighbors.

Muriel, a bit confused, resting his forehead on Asra’s, speaks again.

“I know. But I don’t think I’ve ever said something like that.”

Asra laughs, a much more airy laugh than Lana’s. She’s still losing her mind, trying to recover. But slowly, she makes her way to Muriel and rests her head on his lap, beaming up at him.

“No, you’ve never said something like that before.” Asra smiles, his hand running through Lana’s hair. 

Lana, still giggling, takes Muriel’s hand in hers and kisses the knuckles. 

“You should get mushy more often, Muriel. You know we love mushy.” Muriel nods at her and presses a quick kiss to both their foreheads.

“Okay, I’ll do that.” Asra chuckles again, taking out the little clear vial he used earlier.

“Here, honey, you need some eyedrops.”


End file.
